Planning and Infrastructure Bill: CCN responds

Today the government will publish its Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which sets out further reforms to the planning system.

The Bill will be the next step in the re-introduction of strategic planning back into the system, something of which the County Councils Network has long called for. The government says these spatial plans will ensure there is a ‘clear join up’ between infrastructure and housing needs and will be produced by mayors and in some areas, local authorities.

The Bill will also set out plans to ‘streamline’ planning decisions through the introduction of a national scheme of delegation that will set out which types of applications should be determined by officers and which should go to committee.

Councils will be able to set their own planning fees as part of the changes, and the Bill will also enable councils to undertake Compulsory Purchase Orders of land more easily.

Below, the County Councils Network responds to the announcements.

Cllr Richard Clewer, Housing and Planning Spokesperson for the County Councils Network, said:

“The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is an important step in the re-introduction of strategic planning. Its return is long overdue and if implemented effectively and correctly, strategic planning will help deliver more homes. It will allow areas to pinpoint the right homes in the right places and will enable councils and their partners to plan more effectively for infrastructure in order to make development sustainable.

“These major changes will require a lot more local authority resourcing, so it is imperative that county and unitary councils have the funding to assemble strategic planning teams and deliver evidence bases to make these new plans as effective as they could be. This should be considered in the upcoming Spending Review, where the funding a local authority receives could dictate how comprehensive its strategic plan is. Alongside funding, the government must also ensure councils have the workforce capacity needed. This is especially pertinent for large rural areas where recruitment and retention of planners is more of a challenge.

“Councils share the government’s ambition to build more homes of all tenures, providing they are in suitable locations and making it easier for councils to compulsory purchase land for affordable housing will be a useful tool. However, we are concerned about efforts to dilute and bypass the role of councillors on planning committees, particularly in rural areas where significant developments could only constitute a few dozen homes. By only allowing councillors to debate and discuss only the proposals that the government defines as a large development, this will erode local people’s voice within the planning system.  It will also take away the discretion that can be used by planning committees to resolve small applications that come down to very nuanced decisions.”